Jumbled Thoughts
Kannan's personal space (a.k.a. Views of a Patzer!)
Google Street View: See US streets in 3D
Jun 5th
You probably have already bumped in to the all-new Google Street View feature provided by Google Maps. This is one of the most amazing features I have seen, it allows you to view a real photo of any street (provided Google has a camera there), have a virtual walk through, zoom in and have a clear look at the sign boards and more, all in a glorious 360degree view!! Mind boggling. Currently it supports only San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, Las Vegas, Denver and Miami. Hopefully Google expands this to India soon (hmm, I know I am being too optimistic….may be we need to ask for an Amazon.in first!).
Another feature, still in beta, is Mapplets. These are technically small Google gadgets that can provide a specific functionality based on the Google Maps API. For example, Google currently has a mapplet for real estate search that pin points in the map the houses that match your search criteria.
When I checked this morning, I was pleasantly surprised by the number of sites built around Google Street View. These sites offer interesting links and placemarks that everyone needs to see in Google StreetView. I have listed some below:
- Urban Street Sightings : This Blog captures the best urban snapshots.
- Streetviewr: Lots of cool positions from Google Streetview.
- Laudontech Streetview: Contains lots of interesting people, places and sightings on Google Street View.
- Davidsterry Streetview Links: Streetview pictures are sorted by votes.
- Streetview Sightings: Another blog for streetview sightings.
- Crazy Street View : Crazy pictures from Google Street View.
- Streetview Spotting : Streetview locations arranged into categories.
- Streetview Fun : Another blog.
- Boing Boing also hosts some of the best streetview articles, pictures and videos
BTW, don’t forget to check out the top 15 Google Streetview sightings.
Chess Forums
Jun 4th
I have setup a forums site for Chess. The main idea is to give a platform for discussing Chess in Tamil/English (focus being the former!). Hopefully, tutors/reviews and other articles will accrue over time. Check that out and let me know.
Where does all the digital junk go?
May 30th
Click the picture to view a series of “digital dump” photographs by Foreign Policy.
An interesting quote from that article:
Each year, between 20 and 50 million tons of electronic waste is generated globally. Most of it winds up in the developing world.
Some of the most popular destinations for dumping computer hardware include China, India, and Nigeria. It can be 10 times cheaper for a “recycler†to ship waste to China than to dispose of it properly at home. With the market for e-waste expected to top $11 billion by 2009, it’s lucrative to dump on the developing world.
Scary!
When I heard from one of my colleagues how they discard PCs like junk cars, I couldn’t help but cringe on the humongous wastage! In India we don’t throw away old PCs, we just keep them either hoping to get things done using that or outright refusing to put any more money on that…I am more of the former-category person, but I keep buying new ones at least 
. I still have my first computer (a Pentium 100, 440Bx, 64MB RAM, 4GB HDD) with me. Throwing it out is a strict no-no (I spent INR 75K for getting that 11yrs back), but I can always give it to someone more needy. I need to put them all in a chassis though, which is something very difficult as I need  to search for all the parts first! See how it all boils down to laziness?!
I may soon have to think of some way to dispose off my old PCs (a P100, a PII, a Celeron 1Ghz & a P4), as already the sound my P4 / C2Duo fans make has attracted the attention of the top mangement. I can probably use my old PC with Linux as a streaming agent in the balcony, but hey I’d be the only one using it. Hmmm…lets see, how about trying to setup a Linux cluster? I have never tried this before, should be fun. Or probably, I can just put them all in a switch and try to learn some serious parallel programming. Any other thoughts?
Bruce Lee – The “lost” interview
May 29th
I grew up watching Bruce Lee / Bruce Lee inspired movies, I simply love his way of fighting and the legend surrounding him, who doesn’t BTW? I saw this video (a real gem!) in my full-to-the-brink Google Reader inbox today and watched it immediately…A great one! This is the complete interview with Bruce Lee by Pierre Barton:
I loved the way the man behind the legend came through as a normal, fun loving person on screen. He was so expressive in this interview that you can’t help liking him, just a look in to that piercing eyes and the charisma he oozes on screen will make you his fan, I bet! I wish he had lived longer (or allowed to live longer!).
I was actually surprised by how casual (artificial?!) Bruce Lee spoke! With all those “you better believe it maannn” & “You better be careful, babee”, he sounded more like those rappers than an oriental fellow…I like his voice, goes very well with his image…BTW, did you know he didn’t like being called a “Super Star”
Click “Play” to watch the full video.
Chaos!
May 25th
Lot of things happening right now in my life; Am stuck in the middle of a group transition, with the additional responsibility of arranging a function in my house (Ahhh!) + my pet projects demanding more and more time….Whew, I wonder how the company senior VPs and GMs manage to squeeze in some time for their family amidst their busy schedule!!
I managed to setup a full fledged media center last week, at last! I moved over from TVersity to Vista Media center, using my Xbox360 as the extender. Setting up transcode360 was pretty challenging though…I will post regarding this later. Also, fixed my old computer (a P4), so now I can use this as the download-station (?!) and leave my C2Duo for other important things (hmm…like, movie watching, browsing… 
)
Amidst all this chaos, over the past 3 weeks I managed to watch around 10 East-Asian films too, don’t ask me how!
- JennyJuno (Japanese)
- RPoint (Korean)
- The legend of the seven cutter (Kariseuma talchulgi) (Korean)
- Infernal affairs (Korean)
- Dog bite dog (Gau ngao gau) – Vietnamese/Cantonese/Thai
- Suicide club (Japanese)
- Death note 1 & 2 (Japanese)
- Shaolin soccer (Chinese)
I have the Infernal affairs (2 & 3) and Romantic Warriors DVDs, don’t know when I will watch them.
Finally caught up with the reports of Mtel masters 2007 by updating my Chess blog, today. Starting this Sunday, World Chess Candidates matches are also starting, I hope I get enough time to watch them live (I know, I know, it is too much to ask for!). One thing I haven’t been able to concentrate is my Chessvideos blog, will appreciate if someone can help me out there.
Conan O’Brien visits Intel head quarters in Santa Clara
May 14th
This is a funny video of Conan O’Brien visiting Intel HQ at Santa Clara. I have never been to SC, but I can relate to what he says very well. In fact, the saying inside Intel is “If you have seen one, you have seen them all!”, this is very true for the buildings Intel builds. In Bangalore, Intel has a building at Outer ring road, which looks more or less similar to the SC building shown in the video, though I’d say not as lifeless and dull! The one at Airport road (where I am currently sitting) is not that bad, actually.
How to use Windows Vista for more than 30 days?
May 14th
There is a nice method posted by Ed Bott of Zdnet on extending the Vista’s trial period to 120 days (~4 months). I stumbled on this only recently, while seriously contemplating installing Vista ultimate in a Core2 Duo + 965GF combo. Nice trick, if you need more time to become comfortable with Vista before taking the plunge.
Chessbase Light 2007 Activation – eh?!
May 11th
I love the work being done by the good folks in Chessbase; IMO they have the coolest jobs, they get payed to develop software for CHESS Ohhhh, I wish I had some kinda day job like that! I know video game development is as interesting, but anyway gaming has never been one of my serious interests. Anyway, coming back to CB…I check the Chessbase site more than my Gmail, sometimes, which reminds me of the lack of RSS in their site…but I am not going to complain about that ever, as I feel it is worth visiting their site for the excellent articles they post. I am not sure if Fredrick Friedel ever thought of creating a business model out of the Chess news network they can easily build. Ok, again I am digressing…
I read with interest the article on their Chessbase Light 2007 software. It provides nearly all the functionalities of the full-fledged Chessbase DB software, one of their flagship products, for FREE. Of course, the catch word in the above sentence is “nearly all“. BW, CB Light allows only viewing, you cannot create databases or save games using that. For that you need to upgrade to CB Light Premium, which I guess is the same as Chessbase starter pack minus Bigdatabase 2007/Player encyclopedia/CB Magz.
The activation screen looks like the above screenshot (NOTE: I am using the screenshot provided by CB). When I saw this I was like ‘Eh?? What stupidity!!”…Do you see the captcha field in that window? Captcha are used for preventing the bots doing automatic signups, spams et al. Is there any sane reason why the user has to type the code shown in the image????
“Oh, ok…may be this code is part of the activation process”, I thought.
When I went to the site meant for generating Activation key, I didn’t find a field for entering the abovementioned captcha code. Then why the heck the CB Light programmers decided to show the captcha code in CB Light? Beats me!
Note that I may be totally missing a valid reason behind having that captcha in a desktop program, if so I’d appreciate if you’d enlighten me!
Bang-kwa-hoo Ok-sang (See you after school) – Interesting film!
May 3rd
I love East Asian movies, especially Korean & Japanese. Yesterday I got a chance to watch Bang-kwa-hoo ok-sang (International title is See you after school). The movie plot is simple: Namkoong Dahl is a serial loser, in and out of the school. He even tries therapy, which is again a total disaster. Transferring for the umpteenth time to a new school, he bumps in to none other than the school bully during his first day there. Namkoong Dahl gets challenged for a fight in the roof-top after the school. Rest of the movie tell us the ensuing events of that day.
The movie is funny in its own way. If you have been ever left wondering, while watching a film, what the hell is happening, then I am sure you will love this film 
No complex plots, no need to exercise the grey cells, just plain pure fun. The events in this film unfold fast enough for you not to get bored. No fancy fight scenes, no gory octopus eating scenes, but still See you after school is extremely watchable, because of the way it has captured one full day of Dahl’s life.
Bangalore KempKids – Be careful of the dogs
May 1st
My brother visited me last weekend. On saturday, I took them to Kemp Kids (a.k.a Kempfort) in Airport road. Kempkids is actually a good-enough place to kill a couple of hours, but personally I would leave my wallet in home before going there. They quote exorbitant prices for everything! They have these furry animals (a golden bear-like dog, a spotted dog, a “king-kong” rabbit) at the entrance, amusing kids. I am sure if I had been a kid, I’d have loved to shake hands with them myself.
No doubt these characters are a big hit with the children. But, they are equally irritating to the adults. They try to act smart with ladies, especially of the attractive kind. Once I saw the person wearing the small spotted dog costume, hiding behind the front gate and scaring the kids – a good prank, I’d say, but the person was doing this to the ladies (note that, he didn’t try this on any of the males entering Kempkids), that too with an extra josh, freely touching them. Two of the six girls/ladies he scared, gave him a nice scolding before moving on. The others I am sure would have felt the same rage, but probably covered it up behind an embarassing smile.
I am not sure if Kempkids has any rules/guidelines for these cartoon characters, but if they don’t have them in place yet, its high time they did something about this.
